“Monday, Monday”, sang The Mama & Papas, concluding, “Monday evenings, you would still be here with me”. And after the mother of all bizarre decisions at last week’s Swale Council Planning Committee, it’s Monday evenings still for the Kent TouchTec Kings in 2019.

This means that the previously provisional only fixture list is now fully confirmed with Monday racing beginning on Easter Monday (that’s a 4pm start time on the Bank Holiday on April 22nd) and then after another Bank Holiday afternoon on May 6th., from May 13th. reverting to 6.30pm weekly Monday racing in Speedway’s National League [NL].

Also confirmed in the fixture list (after being marked down as provisional pending the decision on race nights) is the visit to another of the favourites for the NL title, Leicester Lion Cubs which is now set for Saturday August 31st.

The fully confirmed fixtures list is below.

Of the decision at Thursday’s (7/3) Swale Council Planning Committee, Kent co-promoter Len Silver commented,“I have to say I am totally shocked by the result of the Council Planning Committee. We are considering making an appeal. In the meantime, we have been successful running Speedway at Central Park Stadium on Mondays for six years and we will continue working hard to ensure that the club's success continues.”

Those six years have cemented the Speedway track at Central Park Stadium as a hugely popular sporting attraction in the Swale area and the next step forward was to allow more access to local people and visitors from across the county and the south east alike and add to the Council-stated intention, with so much investment into the Sittingbourne area, to boost the social & sporting economy by being able to stage meetings on Saturday evenings.

Local business owner Si Kellow, who has seen the positive benefits of such a boost to the area from the Speedway, spoke at the Planning Committee in favour of the application,“To approve this application builds on the foundations set out in the Council’s ‘Bearing Fruits 2031’ plan, and as the stadium is located in one of the wards specifically mentioned as being in an area of deprivation, and where targeted growth to improve tourism and economic conditions is required, means that this application is aligned to the Council’s aspirations. With the 8.30pm curfew in place, this would leave fans open to make use of the new facilities being built in the town on a Saturday evening.”

There was surprise among Members when Mr Kellow revealed that his research showed that a significant number of complaints about “noise” from the Speedway were made on evenings when actually they’d been no racing there at all or on afternoons when clearly the Speedway isn’t ever taking place. It was unclear whether Council Officers processing such complaints had ever managed to pick up on such inconsistencies.

Despite this and the fact that a Saturday evening with an unchanged early curfew of 8.30pm in general would seem in keeping with an earlier decision to permit a later curfew on Fridays and earlier stated concerns of some residents about the racing night being on a ‘school night’ when Mondays are used – the Committee rejected the application by 13 votes to 1.